Happy Tears

Saw this at Cinema Sundays at the Charles here in Baltimore.

The audience liked it a lot, from their reactions during the film and also at the Q&A. Parker Posey and Demi Moore play two sisters who are faced with taking care of their father in the house where they grew up. Their father, played by Rip Torn, is becoming less and less compos mentis. Not forgetting the wonderful Ellen Barkin, who brings humanity to the role of Shelley, a woman who has reached bottom.

The movie has some pretty trippy sections, a fair amount of things that make you not so sure what's supposed to be happening in the movie's reality, and what's just happening in the head of one of the characters.

It's primarily a good-natured comedy about people and how they get along. It's very funny, with some subtle and unexpected laughs. I can't wait for this to be shown in a local theater so I can see it again.

When their dad (Rip Torn) has serious medical needs, his two daughters (Parker Posey and Demi Moore) return home to look after him. They meet Dad's girlfriend (Ellen Barkin), who isn't helping with Dad at all. She seems to have some issues herself... the sisters are overwhelmed. Clearly Dad needs a home nurse, but they don't want to do that. We keep seeing these weird moments where apparently we look inside Jayne's mind, and how she really feels about something. Jayne learns what was really going on with her dad during her childhood; things that she either didn't see, or didn't want to see. Then, about halfway through, it becomes a bit more surreal, and things start to happen! They scare off Dad's mooching girlfriend. They sell off his stuff. And they start looking for the treasure that may or may not really be hidden on the property. Written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein; it starts out quite serious, but gets lighter in the second half. Family secrets are revealed. They find some resolution... sort of. In their own way. Really gets going in the second half!

"Happy Tears" is an independent, fairly simple, dysfunctional family drama. Two grown sisters move back home to take care of their ailing father. The sisters of course have their own problems on top of dealing with their father who is in denial of his situation and very much trying to live as the patriarch of dysfunctionality.

Many movies have told this type of story, and these filmmakers attempted to make their mark and do something better or at least different. But I was turned off by it. They were going for a dream-like feel with dream-like colours and imagery and of course actual dreams mixed in. I found it all very weird and made it hard for me to get into the film.

The title relates to the laughs and tears that occur. The problem is there are no laughs, and although the characters were well written I wasn't drawn into them so I didn't feel what they were feeling - just uncomfortable.

I appreciated the actors they cast, and the effort that they made to make this film new and good, but I have to recommend "The Savages" (2007) over this.

"Happy Tears" is sort of odd: It draws you in, and you comfortably watch the whole thing. Then, after it ends, you realize it suffers from "chick flick" syndrome, almost as bad as the worst of the genre.

It really has poor story structure. It seems to be moving along, but really it's just floating along on a stream of trenchant dialog and beautiful graphics and editing, and some great acting. But it ends on a happy-go-lucky, that seems rather undeserved and subsequently trite. All kinds of dramatic elements get dropped, and others enter without decent leading development.

In short, if you like narrative integrity, skip it.